


Wartime Worship

by Zetared



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Blasphemy, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 16:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21479539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetared/pseuds/Zetared
Summary: In war, the divine is found wherever you choose to look for it.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	Wartime Worship

**Author's Note:**

> There’s probably blasphemy here. Tread carefully.

“People here,” he says, with an air of authority that cannot be challenged, “people here, in a place like this, doing the things we do--they’ll put their faith in _anything_.” 

“I would prefer to think of it as ‘superstition,’ myself.”

Hawkeye glances across the table, shoulders pulling up in a vague concession of guilt. “Sorry, Father. No offense intended.”

Father Mulcahy smiles and serenely sips his morning coffee before answering, probably just to make Hawkeye sweat. “None taken.”

The mess hall is relatively quiet. The majority of its usual inhabitants have eaten and gone about their business. But daily mass is hours away, yet, and no wounded have found their way to the camp in days. There’s no reason for either the priest or the surgeon to hurry.

“It’s interesting, I admit--I can’t say I haven’t seen my fair share of that so-called ‘faith’ you mentioned. Just yesterday I found one of the wounded men in the hospital clutching an old coin in his hand. He insisted it’s blessed, that if it hadn’t been in his pocket the day of the ambush, he’d be dead.”

Hawkeye nods along. He, too, had spoken to that particular soldier. “He might have been killed,” he agrees. “But unless the coin physically stopped a bullet I don’t know about….” Hawkeye shrugs.

“You’re not an especially faithful type of man yourself, are you?” the priest asks. His tone is curious and thoughtful, not accusatory in the least. It’s part of why Hawkeye likes the man so much.

“I’ve been known to throw out a few fervent, near-death prayers as much as the next guy,” Hawkeye admits. He pauses, meeting the priest eye for eye. “But, no. Not so much.”

“But do you believe that old saying: ‘There are no atheists in the trenches’?”

“Yeah, I do. But who’s to say what they’re believing in down there, instead?”

\--

BJ writes letters home like a man possessed. Hawkeye peeks over his shoulder and catches a few words and phrases now and again. The persistent repetition of “I miss you, I love you, I’ll be home soon” rings in his head secondhand, sometimes, with all the reverent cadence of a oft-repeated prayer.

\--

Hawkeye catches Radar talking to his animals with wide-eyed, hopeful reverence more than once. 

Radar sits on a discarded supply crate and cradles some warm and squirming beast in his arms, presses his soft, hairless cheeks into the fur, and prays for peace and home and the simply solace of his mother’s love.

The animals do not answer such prayers in words, of course, but whatever reply they supply seems to put a spring back in Radar’s step, when it’s all said and done.

Nobody else seems to hear the plea in it, the pure supplication. Even Radar himself may not notice the religion in the ritual, not even with all his strange and unearthly sight. 

But Hawkeye can.

\--

Klinger sits in his tent for hours on end, stitching together and cutting apart. He invites Hawkeye to come by, one especially dismal and rainy day, to shoot the breeze while Klinger works.

Hawkeye watches him sew tiny baubles into silk, once, with all the patience of a saint and Hawkeye wonders, idly, about the nature of prayer beads in fashion and what invocations a man might make to the gods of deception, beauty, and homesickness with every finicky stone.

\--

Frank Burns keeps a rabbit's foot under his pillow. It’s one of the few things Hawkeye has never razzed the man about, even though the idea of its existence haunts Hawkeye long after Frank is gone. He certainly never tells Radar about it, the poor kid. 

Charles Winchester is different. Hawkeye circles him for months, trying to find where his faith lies. He thinks it might be in the music, at first, but of course--as with most things Winchester--it isn’t that simple. What Winchester seeks from his melodies is a more primal comfort. It’s spiritual, perhaps, but there’s no grace in it. The first time Hawkeye overhears one of Honoria Winchester’s recordings playing--likely not for the first time--over Charles’s damn player, though, Hawkeye considers his assessment complete.

\--

Hawkeye watches with a perfect cocktail of concern and curiosity as Major Margaret Houlihan’s belief falls to pieces, tested and found wanting, after what must feel like eons of ceaseless and merciless grind. Her god is a god of war, at its heart. Honestly, she’s not made for that. Not really, not deep down.

They’re all there to help pick up the pieces for her, bit by bit, as they fall away--Hawkeye, the Father, the nurses, Klinger and Radar and BJ and Potter and all the rest. They pool their puzzle-pieces of her faith into one pot and give it a good shake, sending it tumbling out into the world again as something else entirely.

Hawkeye doesn’t entirely recognize the new creation, but he chooses to call it “friendship,” and, when he’s feeling especially tender, “family.”

Whatever power it might be, Margaret thrives as one of its acolytes, the god of war be damned.

\--

Trapper used to reach out and grab him when it got too much to handle alone. His hands would dig into Hawkeye’s arms, his eyes would bore into Hawkeye’s soul, and Hawkeye would stare back, would cling back, because he’s not a _willing _god by any means but damn if he’s going to let John McIntyre fall to pieces before--.

Trapper used to reach out and grab at Hawkeye like a drowning man clutching blindly at the shore and Hawkeye wonders, wonders, wonders...did he fail Trapper, in the end? Is that what made it so easy for him to leave without saying goodbye?

Hawkeye wonders, in his lowest, loneliest hours who Trapper John believes in, now.

\--

Potter looks Hawkeye over one night with an eye made hazy by one too many run-ins with the Swamp still. The old Colonel doesn’t imbibe with them often, but it must be a special occasion, a special night in a long string of nights where everything from bloodbaths to bombshells becomes routine.

“Whatever you’re looking for, Pierce, you won’t find it,” Potter drawls.

Hawkeye doesn’t stick his nose in, after that. He supposes it’s only fair that, from time to time, what a body believes should remain private business between a man and his deity.

\--

Hawkeye considers himself a polytheist.

Hawkeye could find absolution in her embrace. He worships her feet, her hips, the sweet-smelling curve of her chest. He holds her close and whispers words sweet with adulation: hail to the goddess of protection, of healing, of succor in a time of great and terrible desolation. The recitation of his prayers gets lost in the silk of her hair, the purr of her satisfaction, the heat of her skin. He is reborn in her affections, and saved, and saved, again.

And when he steps away from her and removes his hands, she goes from light to flesh again, and he abandons his brief belief in the altar of ransacked blankets and stale still swill they leave behind.

Every goddess he discovers in that paradise leaves a simple human woman once more.

\--

Hawkeye slumps into the nearest chair and rests the length of his body against the wall, eyes closed and heavy with exhaustion, soul screaming out in agony, brain abuzz with memories and thoughts that rattle inside of it like a hoard of angered bees.

No nurse can remedy what troubles him, now.

“Here, Hawkeye.”

Hawkeye opens one bleary eye. He wouldn’t be able to recognize the blob-ish smear of color before him if not for the sharp, stark whiteness of his collar. Slowly, Father Mulcahy’s somber face stabilizes. Hawkeye rummages up a smile for him, tight-lipped and frail.

“Here, take it. Don’t drink it too fast.”

Hawkeye blinks a few times and takes the tall glass of orange juice being handed to him. It’s bitter and cloyingly thick, canned and condensed. It’s also something approaching cold, though, and blissfully wet against his dry throat. “Thanks, Father,” he croaks out, handing the empty glass back.

Father Mulcahy sits next to him on the bench. They remain that way for a while, even long after Hawkeye’s form has slid off the wall and onto the other man’s shoulder, instead. 

“‘For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.’”

Hawkeye’s lips twitch into a sly smile. “Gee, that’s nice. Irving Berlin write that one?”

The priest only shrugs. “It’s something to hold on to, I’ve found, on nights like these.” 

“What nights? What mornings?” Hawkeye sighs. “It’s nearly noon. I know we all went in there yesterday, Father, but it’s tomorrow, now.”

The priest ducks his head. “Yes, well. I suppose that’s true. But, well. You know what I mean.”

“I understand the sentiment, at least. Thanks.”

Father Mulcahy nods. He starts to stand, to go about his daily business. He pauses, though, and settles back down. “Hawkeye, may I be frank with you?”

“I hope not,” Hawkeye mutters, unable to resist taking a dig at Burns even now that he’s far too far away to ever hear it. 

“There is a belief among many cultures that what a mortal man might perceive as the divine is not unreachable. It’s not entirely without credence to assume that whatever makes us, sustains us, loves us, is always within our reach.”

“Father--.”

“God is in His children, Hawkeye. I believe that.”

“That’s all right for you but--.”

“To be _human_, Hawkeye, is to be divine.” He does stand, this time. He turns, though, at the last minute. “But, er, don’t quote me on that, all right?”

Hawkeye watches him go and leans back against the wall again, closing his eyes.

BJ’s hand is familiar and comforting on his shoulder. “C’mon, Hawk. It’s time for all good surgeons to be in bed.”

“What, alone? Never.”

BJ rolls his eyes and tugs Hawkeye to his feet, cupping a hand around his nape and tugging him close in a brief stagger. “Who said you had to be alone?” he says, softly, and Hawkeye grins.

And, maybe, Hawkeye understands what the Father means, after all.


End file.
